


Port of Amsterdam

by BlackHunter666



Series: Songs of the Sea [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 10:26:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2504480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackHunter666/pseuds/BlackHunter666
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Come along on a journey through time and history as a cloaked figure speaks of her experiences and remembers those she has encountered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Port of Amsterdam

People judge. It's human nature. Rarely is it fair but that's what it is. There's nothing that can be done about it except learn to survive the criticisms and rise up above them. I've learned this the hard way. It hurt but I am a stronger person for it. I am what I am and I will not change for anyone. Sometimes my life sucks, but then, show me someone who claims their life is perfect and I will show you a liar and a fool.  
  
I am different. Well duh, you say. We're all different, you say. No, you misunderstand. I see the world in a different way. I understand the world in a different way. I move through this existence in a different way. There is something about my mind and my life that enables me to be aware of things that most people would never dream of acknowledging, much less understanding. I don't fully understand it, I've just gotten used to these sensations and have come to understand what they mean.  
  
I know my existence belies all explanation, my story is so precious as to be unbelievable by anyone who has not lived my life. I am the last of my people, my life still not even a quarter of the way to my eventual end and yet I am already so tired. I have seen so much. I have heard the cries of thousands. Witnessed more horrors than any one being should. I have tasted deceit and lust, pain and passion and so many other emotions that I have no words for.  
  
What am I? My kind have been given many names over the millennia we have moved upon this world but I do not find any of them truly encompass all that we are. Or rather, all that I must represent. There is a chance I could start my people over again, if I ever find the right mate for the ritual. I have come close on a few occasions. Yet every time, your kind proves to be deceptive and unable to truly grasp what I offer.  
  
I have lived through so many tumultuous times, they all blur together in my mind. I am left with a dark feeling about your kind. You are so violent. Warlike. Hostile. What happened to turn you so dark? Your kind used to be such loving and kind folk and yet somehow all of that turned around and you turned into killers.  
  
I do not expect that anyone who reads this will truly understand what I am and what I represent but I feel driven to write this so you might at last realise what you have pushed aside in your haste for nothing of true value. So let me take you back through my long past. Allow me to show you what I have seen. Perhaps you will come to understand what I am, perhaps you will think this is just a fairy tale. Whatever the outcome, I hope you can recognise just how precious my existence is on this world.

#^*^#^*^#~#^*^#^*^#~#^*^#^*^#

In the port of Amsterdam  
There's a sailor who sings  
Of the dreams that he brings  
From the wide open sea

I remember this particular sailor all too clearly. A young man, only just old enough to serve aboard a fishing vessel. I never could get him to explain why he dreamed of the icy waters and the fish he hauled up hour after hour. To me it was ludicrous to go out into the frigid waters in that wooden hulled boat but he seemed truly proud to go out and return to sell the catch before heading out again.  
  
I stayed and watched over him for years, greeting him at the dockside after every successful trip and ensuing he had all he needed when he returned to the sea again. He never knew what I was, at least not beyond the gentle young face I showed him. I would not harm him by revealing what I was underneath that sweet face.  
  
One day, he simply was not there to greet me when his boat pulled into harbour again. I spoke to the captain and he tole me that the young fisherman had been swept overboard by a wave and lost to the depths of the ocean. Such a brave young man, lost before he knew what life was all about. My people were always strictly hands-off when it came to your people, we could not afford to reveal our presence to you.  
  
But when his younger brother volunteered to take his place on the boat to help support their family, I could not ignore the risks to him. Before he left, I gave him a single, pure white feather. I told him I had found it and it had brought me good luck ever since. He seemed reluctant to take it at first but finally took it and tucked it away inside his shirt for safety.  
  
With that feather, the young fisherman survived many years on those icy waters and purchased his own fishing fleet. I could feel his successes and his failures, I saw him rise and fall like so many others when the fish stocks ran low and eventually disappeared completely. I blame myself for that, if I had not gotten involved with that family, the fishing fleets of the harbour would never have gotten so strong.

In the port of Amsterdam  
There's a sailor who sleeps  
While the river bank weeps  
To the old willow tree

Ah yes, this dozy man. An old hand on the seas, grizzled and worn after a lifetime spent before the mast of a trading sloop. To him, I was just another whore of the port, a face in the crowd of women that always tried to get the attention of the sailors arriving from far flung places. To me however, he was a flickering torch in need of protection.  
  
I took my time with him, getting to know him and testing my developing abilities on him. If he knew what I was capable of, he never said anything but I would prefer to think that he had no idea that I was something so special. I was always careful not to harm him, I could hear his heart trouble and feel his fading vision.  
  
I encouraged him to tell me his stories and I wrote them all down, driven to record the life of this wizened old man. He was happy to tell his tales, grateful that someone was at last willing to listen to him and share in the knowledge he had gathered. He was my first indication that your people were not totally lost.  
  
Sadly he did not survive to tell me all of his tales, his life snatched away one evening as he dozed by the fireplace after telling me another story. I really should have expected it, I hard his heart struggling more with each day that passed and could taste his distress every time he moved. I did what little I could to ease his pain in those last days. I had to make sure he knew nothing of what I was doing but I could not leave him to suffer.  
  
I shared out copies of his stories, each one painstakingly written out by hand. Each copy I wrote, I carefully considered who to give it to and wrote a special dedication in the front, personalised o each recipient. And in the bindings of each book, I hid a small white feather so I would always be aware of where these priceless memories ended up.

In the port of Amsterdam  
There's a sailor who dies  
Full of beer, full of cries  
In a drunken town fight

Such a tragedy, to lose this bright young man before his time. I met him as he came off a ship, bound to a battlefield far from home and just here for a couple of days to rest before the final push. He was so excited yet also nervous and worried about his family back home. He spoke so fondly of his young wife and son back home.  
  
I gave freely of my gifts to try and ease his concerns, offering my confidence of his survival and eventual return to his wife and son. I could smell his relief at my support, his fear started to fade and I could pick up on his underlying secrets. Even here I will not spill those secrets, he deserves some dignity.  
  
I wish I knew what exactly happened to push that particular young man into his tragedy, no one I spoke to knew what had pushed him to such an ugly end. The last time I saw him, he was at one of the local taverns, a whore on one arm and a beer in his hand as he spoke the highest praises of the local girls and the alcohol.  
  
I tried to coax him away from the whore but he refused to leave her and somehow a fight broke out. He was right in the middle of the brawl, a bottle still clutched in one hand as he lashed out at anyone who came close enough for him to reach. Even when the bottle broke, he kept hold of it and used it as a weapon, sending blood flying around him. Someone obviously decided that he was too much of a threat and pulled a dagger.  
  
For all my powers and abilities, there was nothing I could do for him. He stumbled back against the bar and slid down, blood staining his shirt as the broken bottle fell from his hand and rolled across the floor. Head down, he was dead before he hit the ground and I saw his life thread snap, leaving a young boy to grow up without his father and a young widow left to wonder what happened to her beloved.

In the port of Amsterdam  
There's a sailor who's born  
On a hot muggy morn  
By the dawn's early light

Such sweet innocence witnessed that morning, a new life born of a harsh story. Son of a whore and a sailor, I could read his fate as clearly as the lines upon his weary mother's face. I could taste her exhaustion and feel her thread weakening. I stayed with her, she was a friend and deserved so much better. From her I had learned so much about humanity. She was a spark of hope and now she was fading.  
  
I took the child with me when she slipped away. I wrapped him up in my jacket and fled with him, knowing that there was nothing more I could do for her. I left here there for the locals to tend to and ran with her son, listening to his future and making sure it happened as was written. He had to survive and thrive or her sacrifice meant nothing.  
  
I gave him to a kindly couple who had long wished for a child. For some reason, they were unable to conceive and that hurt them both so much. They were happy to take the little boy, promising to raise him as a good, honest man. Here he would be loved and cherished, safe from the horrors his birth mother had known.  
  
Leaving the child to a new fate, I gifted him with a feather like so many before him. His new parents promised to always keep the feather with him. They reassured me that they would tell him the truth when he was old enough and encourage him to carry the feather when he left home. That was enough for me, his fate was not mine to decide and I accepted this.  
  
I watched over James from a distance for years, scenting his development and tasting his growing curiosity. From the moment he was old enough to understand, he carried my feather in a pouch around his neck. He knew not who I was but he knew of my love for him, I felt him seeking comfort from my feather whenever he was lost.

In the port of Amsterdam  
Where the sailors all meet  
There's a sailor who eats  
Only fish heads and tails

Now there was a life that left a mark on me, an angry soul that had been kicked down too many times and now lived a half-life in the shadows. Forgotten and ignored, he cared nothing for the world around him. I struggle to even consider him a sailor, for I never saw him go to sea. He stayed at the harbour all the time, gazing out to the waves with a sorrow in his deep green gaze.  
  
I tried to get to know him, I wanted to help him but he pushed me away. He was a confusion of scents and feelings, nothing made any real sense whenever I tried to read him. He smelled of fear and of lust, yet his fate strings were woven into a pattern of peace and joy. He tasted of suppression and distress, sharp and bitter to my senses.  
  
I reached out to him time and time again, trying everything that I could to turn his darkness away. Every effort was denied, he had spent so long in this darkness that he knew nothing else. He had his life, s pitiful as it was and lacked the energy to reach for anything better. This man showed just how far humanity had fallen and it broke my heart to see it.  
  
He could have been anything. Occasionally I could read his courage and dignity, shattered and lost beneath his broken spirit. He could have made it through, found a wife and raised a family. Instead he gave up and let life slip through his fingers. No dreams. No energy. No desires for a better life.  
  
Though it pains me to admit it, even I gave up on him. Even for a being of such unlimited patience, his inability to see that life can be better pushed too much negativity into my life. I left him a feather and a promise to check in when he was ready. He was never ready, the feather floating away on the breeze as he continued with his half-life.


End file.
